Tank (game term)
Tank is a term generally used to refer to a character whose primary role is to absorb damage for the rest of the group and prevent others from being attacked, most often a Warrior or Druid. A tank is a "meatshield", so to speak, intercepting incoming mobs with their persons. Using both the DPS from their massive weapons and/or their innate taunting abilities, the tank assumes the aggro of the mobs and tries to keep them off other groupmates. With everyone targeting and assisting the tank to kill one mob at a time, the mobs go down faster and there is less damage done to the group, depending upon the add situation at any given moment. Because of the constant abuse upon their armor and weapons, it is incumbent upon a tank to keep their gear in tip-top repair. While this is expensive for the Druid or Warrior, mobs drop many serviceable items and there is the Auction House where one can purchase decent equipment appropriate for one's level. The tank is also sometimes referred to as MT (Main Tank) and should not be confused with the MA (Main Assist). Also used to contrast from a Nuker or a Healer. Sub Tanks / Assisting Tanks Voidwalker The voidwalker of a warlock is designed to hold one mob while that mob gets killed by damage over time spells and/or damage dealers. The voidwalker has special spells and own mana to generate threat. Support classes should always remember to heal and buff this valuable sub tank. If you have the voidwalker switch targets it may hold aggro for multiple mobs at one time, but only for a short time unless the damage against them is about equal and not too much higher than the voidwalker itself. Not guaranteed and requires alot more attention, but sometimes better than nothing. Although the voidwalker lacks a true Taunting ability, it does have two abilities which can be used to grab and hold aggro: Torment, which generates threat against a single target; and Suffering, which generates threat against all enemy targets within 10 yards of the voidwalker. Be warned that Suffering has a relatively long cooldown and can be resisted. Hunter Pets Hunters can have an assortment of beasts as pets, and they can serve as secondary tanks. Some pet abilities like growl can help a pet draw the aggro off of mobs. This can be useful to draw mobs off cloth-wearing teammates such as Priests or to enable the hunter to maintain sufficient distance from the mobs to used ranged attacks. Pets with low health can also use the cower ability to shed aggro if needed; this sometimes makes life easier for Warriors. A hunter can have a pet growl to draw aggro when the main tank is in trouble, then cower let the MT return to duty after recovering. When not on duty as backup tanks, pets can attack the primary target of the group to hasten its demise. The most popular pets for Tanking duties are Bears, Boars, and Turtles such as Kresh. Boars and Turtles are especially good tank pets due to the special species-only abilities such as Charge (boars) and Shell Shield (turtles.) Bears also make good all around tanks but do not currently have any bear-specific abilities. Boars are also popular due to the fact that they will eat almost any type of food -- and there are tamable armored boars. (The armor in this case is purely cosmetic but looks cool.) Pets such as Cats or Owls are more popular for extra damage dealing ("DPS") and can't take a pounding quite as well as a tank pet. Many hunters will keep two "permanent" pets in their two stable slots -- a tank pet and a damage pet (or sometimes a PvE pet and a PvP pet, which are often the same as a tank pet and a DPS pet.) The two stable slots are used to hold the permanent pets while taming "temporary" pets in order to learn new skills from pets in the wild. Tanking Ability Comparison By Class Shaman The shaman excels in one half of tanking - aggro generation (the other half is damage mitigation). A Shaman can tank decently using the Earth Shock spell and the Rockbiter Weapon buff. Rockbiter Weapon allows the Shaman's attacks to generate more aggro than normal for the weapon's damage. Likewise, Earth Shock generates more aggro for its damage than most spells. Lightning Shield can also increase the Shaman's DPS to draw more aggro. However the damage mitigation of Shamans is considerably worse than other 'tanking' classes because they are limited to mail armor (plus a shield) and do not have any damage mitigation abilities. Shamans CAN spec for parry and increased defense, which will help avoid incoming damage. If acting as a secondary healer, a Shaman is in a good position to pull aggro from cloth wearers who have drawn aggro from nuking or healing. Hunter As noted, Hunters can use their pets to draw aggro from less durable classes if needed. Hunters can also use the Distracting Shot ability to pull a mob off another player; Aimed Shot can also draw aggro because of its high damage. In their early careers, at least, Hunters are leather wearers, so they aren't as durable as a Paladin or Warrior in the tank role and should allow a better tanker to take over once the danger has passed to the group's cloth wearers. Hunters can learn to wear mail at level 40, which will give them more staying power in the off-tank role. Druid Druids get Bear Form at level 10, and upgrade this to Dire Bear Form at level 40. These forms function in much the same way as a warrior does featuring enhanced damage mitigation and threat generation. Decently equipped Bear tanks feature the highest AC and HP totals of any class in the game. This mitigation along with taunts, the innate 30% threat generated from Bear Form (similar to a warrior in Defensive Stance) and high threat abilities like Maul all combine to make Druids suitable tanks for almost any encounter in the game. For certain encounters (e.g. Jin'do) Druid tanks may be preferred due to their Feral Charge and/or immunity to Polymorph. In addition to Bear tanks some Balance Druids in Moonkin Form can be called on to offtank elites or swarms of nonelites with their increased armor. See the page on druid tanking for more information. Warrior The other primary main tanking class in the game. While warriors can tank with any talent spec and in all stances, the "Protection" tree is geared towards the tanking role, as is the Warrior's Defensive Stance and these are normally featured in endgame environments. Warriors have the most tools of any class for tanking, from their offensive, threat generating tools such as Revenge, Sunder Armor and multiple taunts to their many mitigation abilities starting with the ability to wear the best armor and use shields, continuing with defensive stance, Berserker Rage and emergency buttons like Shield Wall and Last Stand. See Tanking for a more detailed look at warrior tanking. Paladin Can wear the same armor types as the Warrior, i.e. mail until level 40 and plate thereafter, and therefore can absorb an equal amount of damage. The Paladin has less aggro management flexibility and less debuff ability than the Warrior, but are a credible offtank and can even heal and resurrect as well. *Rigtheous Fury increases threat generated by Holy damage dealt by the paladin. *Blessing of Salvation can decrease threat caused by other party members. *Judgement of Justice prevents runners. Category:Game Terms Category:Partying Category:Tactics